Koushun Takami
BATTLE ROYALE
I dedicate this to everyone I love.
Even though it might not be appreciated.
“A student is not a tangerine.”
“But tramps like us, baby we were born to run.”
“It’s so hard to love.”
“During all those last weeks I spent there, there was a peculiar evil feeling in the air—an atmosphere of suspicion, fear, uncertainty, and veiled hatred. You seemed to spend all your time holding whispered conversations in corners of cafes and wondering whether that person at the next table was a police spy.
“I do not know if I can bring home to you how deeply that action touched me. It sounds a small thing, but it was not. You have got to realize what was the feeling of the time—the horrible atmosphere of suspicion and hatred.”
MAP
Third Year Class B,
Shiroiwa Junior High School
Student List:
1 Yoshio Akamatsu
2 Keita Iijima
3 Tatsumichi Oki
4 Toshinori Oda
5 Shogo Kawada
6 Kazuo Kiriyama
7 Yoshitoki Kuninobu
8 Yoji Kuramoto
9 Hiroshi Kuronaga
10 Ryuhei Sasagawa
11 Hiroki Sugimura
12 Yutaka Seto
13 Yuichiro Takiguchi
14 Sho Tsukioka
15 Shuya Nanahara
16 Kazushi Nuiida
17 Mitsuru Numai
18 Tadakatsu Hatagami
19 Shinji Mimura
20 Kyoichi Motobuchi
21 Kazuhiko Yamamoto
1 Mizuho Inada
2 Yukie Utsumi
3 Megumi Eto
4 Sakura Ogawa
5 Izumi Kanai
6 Yukiko Kitano
7 Yumiko Kusaka
8 Kayoko Kotohiki
9 Yuko Sakaki
10 Hirono Shimizu
11 Mitsuko Souma
12 Haruka Tanizawa
13 Takako Chigusa
14 Mayumi Tendo
15 Noriko Nakagawa
16 Yuka Nakagawa
17 Satomi Noda
18 Fumiyo Fujiyoshi
19 Chisato Matsui
20 Kaori Minami
21 Yoshimi Yahagi
Introduction
What? Battle Royale? “What’s Battle Royale?” Come on, don’t tell me you don’t know that!? Why bother coming to a pro wrestling match, huh? The name of a move? The name of a tournament? No, Battle Royale’s a pro wrestling match. What? “Today?” Today, here, you mean? No, it’s not today’s program. It’s only held in large arenas for big events. Look, there’s Takako Inoue. O-oh, sorry. That’s right, a Battle Royale. It’s still held in the All Japan Pro Wrestling League. In a nutshell, let’s see Battle Royale is—you know how your usual pro wrestling match is one on one or between paired up partners, well with Battle Royale, ten or twenty wrestlers all jump into the ring. And then you’re free to attack anyone, one on one, or ten against one, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many wrestlers pin someone down—what, you don’t even know what a pin is? Once your back’s on the mat, the count goes, one, two, three, you lose. It’s no different from a normal match. Players can also forfeit, and occasionally someone’ll get knocked out. Oh yeah, and there’s the count out. You can also be disqualified by breaking the rules. Most wrestlers lose by falls in Battle Royale. Hey, go Takako, go! Go, go! O-oh, sorry sorry. In any case, the ones who fall lose, they have to leave the ring. Fewer and fewer players remain in the game. There’re only two left in the end. One on one, a very serious match. One out of those two will eventually take a fall. Then there’s only one player left in the ring, and he’s the winner. He wins. He’s given a huge trophy and prize money. Get it? Huh? What about players who’ve been friends? Well, at first, of course they help each other out. But in the end they have to fight each other. You have to follow the rules. Which also means you get to watch some rare matches. Like way back when the tag-team partners of Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith were the remaining players. Same thing happened with tag-team partners Animal Warrior and Hawk Warrior. In that match though I don’t remember which one, but the guy intentionally went for a count out letting his partner win, a display of camaraderie which was kind of a letdown. Oh, you can also team up with players who used to be your enemies. But the moment you think you’re teaming up to get rid of someone else, this sneaky friend can suddenly betray and beat you. Let’s see, a Battle Royale I’d like to see now? Well given how many federations there are, I’d like to see a Battle Royale between the leaders of each federation. Keiji Mutoh, Shinya Hashimoto, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, Nobuhiko Takada, Masakatsu Funaki, Akira Maeda, Great Sasuke, Hayabusa, Kenji Takano, also Genichiro Tenryu, Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Kengo Kimura could still be in the running. It’d be fun to add Yoji Anjoh and Super Delfin. They might actually end up being the last two remaining players. For women’s first of all, Takako, then Aja Kong, Manami Toyota, Kyoko Inoue, Yumiko Hotta, Akira Hokuto, Bull Nakano, of course Dynamite Kansai, and Cutey Suzuki and Hikari Fukuoka, Mayumi Ozaki, Shinobu Kandori, and Chigusa Nagayo and… what? How could you not know any of them? Did you really come here to watch pro wrestling? Oh, no no no no no, Takako, fight back ! Takako! All—right.
Prologue
Government Internal Memo 1997,
No. 00387461 (Top Secret)
Dispatched by Central Authority Secretariat Special Task Force Defense Supervisor and Battle Experiment Advisor of the Special Defense Army
To: Supervisor in Charge of No. 12 1997 Battle Experiment No. 68 Program (May 20, 18:15)
We have confirmed evidence of an intrusion into the central government operations system. The intrusion was undetected on the date of its occurrence, March 12. We are currently investigating any additional evidence of re-entry.
The suspect’s possible identity, purpose and any possible information leaks are also being investigated, but because the suspect’s computer skills were highly advanced, we anticipate a significant delay in producing the suspect’s profile.
The Central Authority Secretariat Special Task Force Defense Supervisor and the Battle Experiment Division of the Special Defense Army were informed that data from Program No. 68 may have been corrupted, and as a result we immediately considered the postponement of Program No. 12 for 1997.
However, because preparations for No. 12 are complete, and because there is no indication that the above data has been leaked into the civilian population, we have concluded the program should proceed as scheduled.
However, we will be considering rescheduling future programs following No. 12, as well as implementing design changes in “Guadalcanal.”
As the supervisor in charge of executing the experiment, you, supervisor of Program No. 12 are to proceed with extreme caution.
Furthermore, this infiltration incident is classified top secret information and is to be treated as such.